


go ahead, let your hair down

by idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo



Series: Adam Parrish and His Band of Merry (College) Friends [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish is a Witch, Bisexual Adam Parrish, College Student Adam Parrish, Humor, I can't believe there's no official tag for that ?, M/M, Soft Adam Parrish, adam being his mysterious self, kinda? idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 19:33:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19383313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo/pseuds/idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo
Summary: Harvey's roommate was kind of weird.





	go ahead, let your hair down

**Author's Note:**

> y'all !! I'm just so incredibly soft for soft!Adam !!! also, once again, an OC, this time HARVEY (whom I love most ardently). I'm making this whole College Friends of Adam Trying to Figure him Out a series, so suggestions are welcome !
> 
> as well as that, I'm just very soft for the vancouver crew and I feel like they don't get enough attention, so here's the Cheng2/OC romance no-one asked for !!
> 
> feedback & kudos always much appreciated !!
> 
> title by 'put your records on' by corinne bailey rae, which is a song that we all, collectively as a species, don't listen to enough imo.

 

Harvey Michaels’ roommate was kind of strange.

Not necessarily in a bad way, but strange still.

The first day they met, Harvey had just hauled a suitcase full of clothes up three floors in his dorm and spent five minutes looking for the right room. When he finally found it, he knocked on the door and entered, finding his new roommate already inside in the process of unpacking his things.

“Hi, I’m Adam Parrish. You must be Harvey,” the guy said, extending a hand to shake Harvey’s in a proper manner with a proper accent and an obviously fresh haircut. Somehow, even his clothes looked proper, despite just being a pair of dark blue jeans and a t-shirt.

Harvey introduced himself, made some small-talk, then his parents burst into the room in excitement, chattering on and introducing themselves to Adam and it took him half an hour to steer them out of the door again with a promise to meet up later for lunch. At that point, Adam had already unpacked both of his suitcases and was sorting a bunch of binders on his desk.

“Sorry about that,” Harvey said, rubbing the back of his neck.

Adam shook his head at him, though he seemed a bit tense. “No worries, man. It’s cool that they’re so excited for you.”

Harvey shrugged. “Your parents come here, too?”

“No, they couldn’t make it.”

The tone of Adam’s voice was final, and Harvey knew better than to ask for more details. Instead, he looked at the picture already taped to the wall above Adam’s bed. It showed a group of people their age in front of what looked like a farm. Adam was in the middle, tucked under the arms of a scary-looking guy with shaved head on one side and a posh-looking one on the other. A girl with wild locks stood perched on some stairs behind them, leaning her arms on the scary guy’s shoulders. Next to her was a guy with crazy hair and in front of the group a small girl with some kind of clunky boots.

All of them were smiling widely and Harvey instantly felt the urge to smile, as well, at the pure happiness radiating from the picture.

“These your friends from back home?”

The brightness of Adam’s smile almost mirrored those in the picture. “Yeah.”

Harvey smiled back, then looked down at the contents of his box.

“Do you mind if I hang up a pride flag on my side of the room?” He crossed his fingers behind his back. Adam didn’t seem like a very conservative person, but still Harvey knew first impressions could be deceiving, and he would much rather prefer to live with someone comfortable with queerness for the next year than with a conservative asshole.

Adam grinned. “Yeah, totally, go for it! Is it, like, a rainbow flag?”

Harvey pulled out his pink-white-blue Trans Flag. Adam’s grin grew even wider.

“Nice, man. I’ve only got this small one, but I promised my friend I’d put it on my desk once I’ve unpacked.”

He pulled a paper weight with a small Bi Flag attached to it and set it on his desk next to a small plant he’d already put there, then took an old cell phone out and snapped a picture.

“Gonna send that to her, she’ll be happy to know my roommate’s not a dick.” Harvey laughed and Adam grinned back at him. “Hey, need help with hanging up your flag?”

 

* * *

 

 

When his friends from home asked Harvey about his roommate a few weeks into the semester, he didn’t have a straightforward reply.

Adam was nice, funny, a considerate roommate, a bit of a workaholic, pretty hot if you asked anyone with good taste, and over-all just a swell guy. But he was also… strange.

Strange in different ways.

Strange because of his love for house-plants, for example. Where there had been two small ones at the start, there were now a total of seven, with Adam bringing home another one every now and then. They all seemed to prosper under his green thumb, and if you asked Harvey, they grew a bit too quickly for it to be considered normal.

Strange for the gadgets he had that worked a little too well, that sometimes made Harvey consider if, maybe, magic was real after all. There was a pen that never ran out of ink, a sweater that never got stained, fairy lights hung over Adam’s bed that didn’t have to be plugged in and didn’t seem to have any other kind of energy source.

He was strange because of his tarot cards and sometimes too-accurate knowledge of the future – never anything really concrete, like lottery numbers, but he knew when the weather was going to change when even the most accurate forecast got it wrong and what kind of mood his professors were in before he entered the auditorium. He could tell what kind of day Harvey had had when he walked through the door and gave on-the-nose relationship advice without knowing the couple. In general, he just knew too much about people after knowing them only briefly.

He was fiercely private, Harvey soon found out. When asked about home, he would usually change the topic, but when asked about his friends, the ones in the photo, his grin grew wide, his usually closed-off face lighting up like the sun. There had to be some kind of significant other in his life, someone he called ‘honey’ and ‘darling and ‘babe’ over the phone late at night, and there were people he called during the day, loud yelling audible through Adam’s shitty phone’s speaker.

There were postcards that arrived regularly from all over the southern States, and later into the semester, Mexico. There were packages arriving in the post every other week or so, too, always filled with food (home-made cookies, jam, chocolate, energy bars and whatever else the sender had thought of that day), a new gadget that was never of much use but always strangely magic-like, usually an item of clothing thrown in that either fit Adam perfectly or was way too saggy on his lanky frame. (There was usually also a bunch of leaves and sticks, and sometimes a children’s drawing, but Harvey didn’t really know what to make of that yet, so he chose to ignore it.)

Adam opened every parcel with almost painstaking care, and the only explanation he gave Harvey was that it was ‘from home’. Harvey guessed that it was from his significant other and left it that. He wasn’t one to pry.

 

* * *

 

 

Five weeks into the semester, Harvey walked into his Agricultural Economics class at eight a.m., cursed his past self for signing up for it, and sat down next to one Henry Broadway.

One Henry Broadway, who, as it turned out, was a shameless flirt. A shameless flirt who spent the next two hours drinking two Red Bulls and using just about every bad pick-up line there was in the English language. By the time the class had ended, Henry was visibly shaking from the caffeine intake and had Harvey’s number saved in his smartphone.

Henry texted Harvey exactly twenty-eight minutes later, and, after chatting for the rest of the day, Henry called him in the afternoon and invited him to a party that weekend at the house him and some friends were renting – not a frat house, he clarified, something a bit more civilised than a bunch of straight white guys living in a puddle of alcohol. The party was going to be a hit, he said, and Harvey should bring any friends he wanted to, and also it was going to be somewhat of a date, and if they liked each other, he’d take Harvey out on a real date afterwards, but no pressure, but it’d be cool if Harvey came – Harvey interrupted him at that point and told him he’d come, gladly.

Adam came home just after Harvey had hung up and furrowed his brow at the sight of him laying starfish-like on his bed.

“You in love?” he asked, and Harvey giggled.

“Not yet. You wanna come to a party this weekend?”

Adam’s brows rose. “Um, not sure, what kind?”

“Some guy I met in class invited me. Henry… something. You know him?”

Adam started unpacking his bag. “I only know one Henry, and he’s in Mexico right now.” Harvey perked up at this. Information shared about Adam’s private life? A very rare occurrence. The guy in question continued, “But sure, I’ll come along. Wouldn’t want you to get kidnapped by some weird frat boy.”

“He’s not a frat boy!”

 

* * *

 

They left their dorm around nine on Saturday after having pizza for dinner – a rare treat seeing as both of them were living on a budget and a scholarship, which meant that they usually got food in the dining hall.

Harvey had made an effort in dressing up, wearing a new button-up and dark pants, whereas Adam just wore jeans and a t-shirt. If he was honest, he was kind of jealous that Adam managed to look good without even trying, but Adam just grinned at him and told him he looked great, and who was Harvey to tell Adam Parrish that he was wrong?

The house where Henry lived was only a short walk away, and they spotted it from a few hundred meters ago: all the windows lit up, fairy lights spun all over the lawn, people milling outside and music playing over some speakers. It seemed like a mix of frat-party and chilled hang-out, and Harvey was positively surprised.

They pushed their way through the crowd inside, moving towards the kitchen, where Harvey poured himself a drink and looked at Adam questioningly.

“Oh, I don’t drink.”

Harvey raised the bottle of orange juice he’d just used to thin his vodka down.

“Wanna get a cup of this so people don’t ask dumb questions?”

A look of surprise hushed over Adam’s face, then he was grinning. “Sure, thanks.”

It was just that moment when Henry walked into the kitchen and exclaimed, “Heeeey! I’m glad you could come!”

Harvey wasn’t sure if he was drunk already or if this was just him being his normal, amped-up self, but he hugged him either way. “Hi! This is my roommate, Adam –“

“Parrish! What’re you doing here?” Harvey boomed over the music.

Adam grinned at him, then at Harvey, then back at Henry. “Cheng2! I didn’t know you were studying here?”

“Hell yeah, I am, baby! Economics! But hey, you heard of Cheng1 and Gansey recently? They still hopping around with Sargent?”

“Yeah, just got a postcard of them from –“

At that point, Harvey lost track of the conversation. From somewhere, or, as it turned out in the process of the evening, from school, Adam and Henry – whom Adam called Cheng2, for some reason – knew each other, and they spent five minutes catching up, or rather, catching each other up on what the friends they had in common were up to.

Then, at one point, Henry said, “Well, great catching up, but I got an unofficial date to attend,” he winked at Harvey, “so I’d better not leave him hanging. Rutherford should be around somewhere, though, he’d love to talk to you!”

Adam murmured in agreement that he’d go and find said person in question, and Henry pulled Harvey towards the dance floor in what seemed to be the living room. Before they had fully exited the kitchen, though, Henry turned around again and asked Adam,

“You and Lynch still going strong?”

And Adam Parrish, with his closed-off face and his emotions in check and his absolutely private life, had the nerve to blush and smile down at his feet and look completely and utterly in love.

“Yeah, we are.”

Henry whooped and pulled Harvey away, leaving him no time to process the new information about Adam.

 

* * *

 

Five hours later found them stumbling home to their dorm – or, more precisely, Adam supporting Harvey as he stumbled home.

“’m sorry for being drunk,” Harvey mumbled, and Adam shook his head.

“Don’t worry, I’ve carried heavier people home.”

“Who, your boyfriend?”

Adam huffed out a surprised laugh. “Yeah, my boyfriend.”

“Huh.”

Adam turned his head to look at him. “What?”

“Nothing, ‘s jus – “ he pulled Adam to a halt as he searched for the right words to articulate that Adam lit up every time he talked, however briefly, about his boyfriend, the way the nervous energy around him seemed to come to a stop for just a few moments, the way he could never hide his smile at the thought of whoever it was that sent him the bi-weekly parcels. But all Harvey’s drunken mind could formulate was, “You’re always soft when you – when you talk about ‘em.”

Adam looked at him for a few moments, way too thoughtful for a college student on a Saturday night at three a.m.

Then he smiled, and this time, it didn’t light up anything, but his whole expression was just what Harvey’d meant earlier – soft.

“Huh. I guess I am.”

Then he pulled Harvey’s arm back over his shoulder and the pair continued their walk home.

 

 


End file.
